Question: Did Palin complain about those neighbors intruding on her privacy? Did Palin engage in fear mongering about the well being of her children back then?

We do know Palin launched a wicked and disgraceful smear campaign this week against Joe McGinniss when she found out the author, who is working on a book about Palin, had rented the house next door to her in Wasilla, Alaska. Writing on her Facebook page (or paying somebody to write for her on her Facebook page; there's no way of actually knowing), Palin portrayed McGinnis as intruding on her privacy and a would-be pedophile who wanted to lurk around her children's windows. Even though yes, it was Palin who invaded McGinnis' privacy this week by publishing a photo of him on his back deck. And yes, Palin only found about McGinniss after her husband went over to McGinnis' home. So who's stalking whom?

Palin quickly made the media rounds. Nailing herself to the rhetorical cross, the half-term governor and full-time Fox News flak, attacked McGinniss as a "creepy" "odd character," claiming his moving in next door was "sick." She feared him "peering" through her windows, and whipped the right-wing mob into a get-McGinnis frenzy. (The McGinniss death threats have already been spotted.)

All of this, of course, was based on nothing more than Palin's unbending hatred for the press and an intense desire to continue her full-time job of playing the media victim. (Palin could have objected to McGinniss moving in without playing the sex offender card.)

But guess what? As Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore first reported at Huffington Post, between 2006 and 2008, the house right next door to Palin (and the one now occupied by McGinnis) was run by Oxford House, a sort of half-way home for recovering drug addicts and alcoholics. That's right. Recovering drug addicts and alcoholics. But at the time, did Alaska celebrity Palin used her children to launch a p.r. campaign against Oxford House? Did Palin suggest the recovering addicts would be peering into her windows or posed an imminent threat to her young girls?

As best I can tell, Palin did not. But today, Palin heads a smear campaign against a world-famous author, depicting him the most odious way possible; as a possible sexual predator.

It is hypocrisy to the extreme on Sarah Palin's part to imply that Joe McGinniss, a renowned author with impeccable credentials, poses a possible threat to her children and is a potential pedophile - while Sarah Palin herself had apparently no problems at all to live next door to recovering alcohol and drug addicts for several years. And her children, not to forget, were very young at that time - Track was born in 1989, Bristol in 1990, Willow in 1994 and Piper in 2001.

Truth is, as more facts spill out regarding the manufactured controversy about who's living next door to her, like the fact that Palin's neighbor reportedly rented to McGinniss specifically in order to piss Palin off (why is Palin such a bad neighbor?), it's looking more and more like the truly creepy behavior is coming from the Palin side of the fence, not McGinniss's.

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EricBoehlert
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A Senior Fellow for Media Matters, Boehlert is the author of Bloggers On the Bus: How The Internet Changes Politics and the Press, and Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush. Previously, he wrote on staff for Salon and Rolling Stone.

Right-wing media outlets are parroting the attacks of an anti-LGBTQ hate group on Connecticut’s openly gay comptroller, Kevin Lembo. Lembo recently sent the American Family Association (AFA) a letter asking the group to submit written documentation certifying it complies with the nondiscrimination regulations governing the Connecticut State Employee Campaign for Charitable Giving (CSEC), which allows Connecticut State employees to contribute to qualifying non-profit charities through payroll deductions. Lembo’s office has since been “flooded” with emails and phone calls from AFA supporters.